“You should join the world race with me Joe!” I remember sitting in the caf of Biola Universtiy with Jena before any of this started. She was trying to convince me to go on this 11 month missions trip with her and I thought she was crazy. But there was something she talked about that was so genuine and I was so curious as to what she meant. She always talked about “intimacy” with God. Going to Biola I had a lot of knowledge about God, but I don’t think I would describe my relationship with him as “intimate”. But Jena always talked about it. She wrote her first blog of the World Race about it, and she wrote her last one about it too (if you haven’t read it, go now. Stop reading this and go read hers first, trust me it is incredible.) But looking back on these 11 months, intimacy with God is easily the greatest revelation I’ve taken from this trip. But let me talk to you about what that actually means.
See, back in the days before Jesus, the Jews had to sacrifice animals in order to have their sins forgiven. They maintained a relationship with God based on their sins being forgiven again and again through the sacrifice of a high priest. But only the High Priest (really holy people) could enter into the “holy of Holies” (the place where God’s presence would come and dwell). But if the High Priest still had unconfessed sin in his life and dared enter into the holy of Holies, he would be struck dead. He wore bells on his ankles incase he still had sin in his life so that if the workers of the temple heard the bells stop ringing.. they would drag him out.
BUT NOW…
When Jesus came, He was our perfect, eternal High Priest. No more animal sacrifices that lasted only a little while, His sacrifice was perfect and everlasting. Jesus died for us so that we can now enter into the Holy of Holies unashamed and with confidence. And even more so, we are the Holy of Holies! If the Holy of Holies was considered the holiest place because God dwelled there, guess what.. we are now the Holy of Holies because we are the dwelling place of God. This is not just a cool theological nugget, it is a reality that we now live in.
Imagine if we woke up every morning thinking about the fact that God dwells in us. That the Spirit of Christ is alive and powerful in our lives. What would that mean for our live if we acknowledged the presence of God in everything? Circumstances cant lay a finger on the holy of Holies. No more bad days, yes hard days, but no bad days with this reality in our lives.
Okay so stick with me now.. I’m getting to my point.
I’ve realized that intimacy with God is not just a feeling, it’s a truth. When we place our faith in Christ, we have peace with God (Romans 5:1). We enter into intimacy with Him forever. Think about that. Right now, in this moment, through faith in Jesus you are standing in the presence of the Joyful God. You are His dwelling place. So let the muscles in your shoulders relax, let the “holy” performance bar in your mind fade away, because this is the amazing truth of the gospel. Intimacy is not just a feeling.. it is truth! And with this truth as our foundation we can begin to explore the emotions of it. We stand in truth, not feeling, but we can start to grow in our feelings as we grow in our acceptance of the truth. Once we realize intimacy is not something jut driven by our pure emotions we can start to live in this reality more and more everyday.
Intimacy with God goes far beyond mere human emotion, it is something that Jesus established 2,000 years ago on a cross.
So back to one of the most important teachings of Jesus. Abide in Him. God knows us, and He knows our tendency to base our relationship with him on how much we serve him, how much we do for him. We evaluate our worth as a Christian based on how well we’re do the Christian life. How much we’re going to church, how many people we’re impacting, how much we’re reading our bibles etc. But when Jesus tells us to abide in Him He is saying the only way to “successfully perform” as a Christian is to be intimate with him. Think about that for a second. Just by being with Jesus, you’ll create more fruit then you can ever do in your own effort. Like what Jena said in her blog, if we want to live out our calling in life and see amazing things, we need to cultivate true intimacy with Jesus.. we have to learn to be with him.
Now, when you hear this, don’t think “Ahh I just need to get more intimate with God somehow in my own effort!” No! God has already flung the door open by the sacrifice of Jesus, all we need to do is walk in it. Like my squad leader Pat said the other morning during worship, "We don't grow in our righteous of Christ. We don't gain more access to God now that we've done the world race. We just grow in our realization of it." We just learn to walk in the New Reality of the Kingdom. This is the greatest privilege of our lives.. that despite our insecurities, our feelings of failure, our weakness, our immaturity.. the door is still flung open with God saying, “COME IN!” But often times we choose not to. And instead of bearing fruit we wither away in our intimacy.
“If anyone does not abide in me, he is like a branch that withers away” (John 15:6)
See, withering is a slow but deadly process. It starts with little things, like ignored convictions, or “small sins” that start to become normal to you. It’s the unforgiveness in your heart that turns into built up bitterness. It’s playing the victim to your circumstances, or something someone did to you. I’m speaking from experience. I’ve lived this way for so many years before the World Race. But the truth is that His grace is enough to overcome everything and anything in our lives so there really isn’t any excuse for us to fall on. None at all. Through the power of His resurrection we’ve been empowered to overcome by His Spirit who dwells in us. We’re not victims anymore, we’re actually called “more than conquerors.
So pain, hurt, loss, misunderstanding, offense in our hearts.. none of it can rob us of our intimacy with Jesus. We just allow the enemy to come in and kill, steal and destroy. He can only take up the territory of our hearts that we give him. But the power of the gospel is not really all that great of news if it doesn’t apply in every situation right? Good thing that it does.
Coming home I’ve been asking myself “How am I going to sustain this passion for Christ for the long haul. How am I going to keep abiding 30 years from now? How will I maintain this new found intimacy?
I don't want to wither now that I'm home. I don't want to take any steps back. I want to believe what happened to me these past 11 months was true transformation. But I don't have to worry too much on the how because Jesus made it pretty clear.
“If you keep my commands, you will abide in me.” Do you see that? It is actually obedience to Christ that will keep us abiding in the vine for the long haul. And it is his grace that empowers us to obey. His Spirit moves with our obedience. We obey, He empowers. That is amazing grace in action and probably one of the greatest revelations of my life. It’s in our radical obedience to Christ where nothing can disconnect us from the vine. But there is a flip side to this as well. I’ve learned that we can make decisions to disconnect ourselves from the vine. We can allow the guilt and shame that comes from sin to strip us of that intimacy with our Father. We can allow bitterness, cynicism and unbelief be things that rob us of the most joyful reality of intimacy with God. But it’s in the obedience to the way of Christ where we are empowered by His Spirit to abide long term. Which also means to stay joyful in His presence long term. And that is what I'm after with my life.
So let’s be a generation that is addicted to intimacy with God. Let’s fight for it everyday. Let’s stop caring so much about our cool Facebook statuses, our instagrams of our coffee and the bible, our captivating tweets. Let's have time with Him that nobody knows about. Let’s just be with Him and grow in our genuine joy of just knowing Him more and more everyday. I’m back home now, and I know this is no easy feat when so many people care about what others think. But I’ll fight for that intimacy no matter the cost.
Thank you everyone who followed me on this journey. I pray that God blesses you with the knowledge of His love just like He did in my life!
Joe
